An entrepreneur’s success, in both personal and professional life, comes down to how well they’re able to deal with the
challenges in front of them. The following interventions have proven to be extremely effective in giving entrepreneurs a huge edge in producing breakthrough results while achieving their desired outcomes.

1 Actively confront and take action to disrupt your undesired default future on an ongoing basis. The Chinese have a saying, “If you don’t pay attention to the direction in which you are going, you will likely end up where you are headed.” They were referring to your automatic or default future. Some default futures are desired and some are not.

2 Know that you don’t have to feel confident about yourself to be successful. Many times people put off their entire lives, waiting for the right feeling (like confidence) to show up, so that they can finally do what’s required to achieve their dreams. This isn’t logical. Confidence is simply overrated. What’s required is competence and decisive action. Acting decisively can be done with or without confidence. All that matters is that the “required action” is done. How you feel, when you are engaged in the action, is of little consequence. You can act decisively in spite of any feeling that you are experiencing, or any feeling that you are not experiencing.

3 Competency/commitment confusion. Coaching someone who lacks competency (information and skills) is difficult to do. Training someone who lacks sufficient commitment (the willingness to do what’s required) is nearly impossible. If you’re struggling to get a result, ask yourself the following question, “If my life depended on it, would I generate the intended result that I have been struggling to produce?” If the answer is yes, it’s a commitment problem. If the answer is no, it’s a competency problem. People confuse can’t and won’t quite often. Can’t means “It’s impossible.” Won’t means “I could do it, but I am unwilling to pay the required price.”

4 Input/output imbalance. Input is the actions one takes to achieve a result. Examples might include: workshops, conversations with potential clients, marketing campaigns, 360-degree stakeholder assessments and emailing newsletters. Output is simply the desired outcome or results. The majority of your time should be spent focusing on output as opposed to input.

5 Are you feedback tolerant or feedback sensitive? Effective feedback is what makes life and business move forward. Feedback sensitive people will resist and many times ignore valuable feedback. This behavior is what keeps the sensitive stuck. Feedback tolerant people accept and act on feedback from qualified sources so as to move their lives forward, even if it is unpleasant at times.

6 Strengthen successful behaviors. When something works for you, always find the source of the success, and do more of it. In other words, “Do more of what makes you stronger.” It’s like building an emotional muscle that will assist you for the rest of your life. It’s just as important to get to the source of your successes in life, as it is to get to the source of your failures.

7 Neutralize unsuccessful behaviors. Engaging in activities that bring weakness and failure to your life makes no sense. Also become vigilant of “derailment behaviors.” Examples of derailment behaviors include: being demeaning, overly dramatic, intimidating, impatient, selfish, intolerant, shy, and disrespectful toward others. Many times, these behaviors exist below the level of the conscious awareness of an individual. It is vital to get appropriate feedback from a qualified professional in order for the individual to “see what they’re not seeing” and disrupt the unworkable pattern.

8 Stop “giving it your best shot” or “doing everything you know” in attempting to achieve your outcomes. You have to do “what’s required” to get an intended result. Knowing what to do won’t make you do it either. Life has no favorites. You get what you create.

9 Logic makes people think and emotion makes people act. Being too logical and “thinking things to death” is a major cause of stagnation and failure. Once you are 80-90% ready, it’s normally safe to act on most projects. What will work is to “reverse logic and emotion” and get into action.

10 Non-confrontation is expensive. Hesitancy kills. Whatever you are procrastinating about is almost always due to fear. Start taking action regardless of how uncomfortable you are or what your internal voice is telling you. Train yourself to do what’s necessary to move forward in life.

11 Go heavy on practicality and light on theory. It’s easy and fun to think about, and talk about, various approaches to dealing with challenges, and the more complex you get the harder it is to implement them. The most effective approaches are usually simple, straightforward, direct and to-the-point. Think in terms of “radical practicality” to get things done.

12 Know that anytime you are “content” in life that usually spells trouble. Playing small, holding back, hanging on or playing wait-andsee, doesn’t serve well. There are only two games in life. One is to expand and grow. The other is to shrink and contract. There really is no such thing as standing still. Trying to “maintain” just leads to shrinking.

13 “What is the thing that you have been putting off, that you need to make a commitment to do?” Now go do it. Success in life is about doing the sit-ups (necessary required actions). No one can live your life for you.